Arc of Red
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Love, like dragons, is dangerous. Akiho-centric, character study
1. End

_warning for eviction, violence, harm to minors._

* * *

1\. End

The end of childhood is in her knife.

No pausing, no misstep. Just childhood to monster in one curved strike.

Akiho practices smiling at the mirror while looking to the side of heads. Look at where the brain is, she reminds herself.

Subaru is crawling, she notes, watching her gum on a toy. Subaru is easy to threaten.

She refuses to be easy. She refuses to fall down. If she falls, they all will. Back into the rabbit hole.

She runs, strikes, bleeds all alone. All except for her bird.

Such a strange bird. She almost seems like a friend.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _ Oh look, Akiho. I knew I'd get to you eventually, my dear headcanoned awesome character. One of my issues with Decode was wasted characters. There was a lot there that we didn't see because World mechanics and plot. So I'mma change that. This, like Blood and Mud, is completed already, so expect weekly updates on this.

 **Challenges:** Diversity Writing C7. write a collection with 15 times 100 words drabbles, Ultimate Sleuth - Central Hospital - write a set of 100 word drabbles


	2. Fist

2\. Fist

Backflip. Jump, red. Splat. All the same, she notes. Everything can kill you. Some ways only hurt less.

Akiho does not question why it does. She accepts it, and moves on. She doesn't want to die.

Nokia is too young for this. So is she, but the marks twisted into her back where a bullet had been makes her give up on that shield, transparent as it is.

She figures out how to aim her fist, and when her body turns a little red, it's somewhere between blood and anger. Akiho isn't sure which she likes better.

Both, she decides.


	3. Mothers

3\. Mothers

Tori, Digitorin, older than stars, gets her an Agumon to slice. She does it.

 _Why?_ She mouths.

Because mothers are terror, dragons are death, and dragon mothers are both.

The MetalGreymon lunges for her and she cannot run. Doesn't she deserve what she gets?

Digitorin's wings expand orange and she shrieks back. Akiho feels the tears and takes the knife in hand.

Face the consequences, the bird says.

Well, you haven't given me any choice.

Digitorin just doesn't seem to understand that Akiho can't come back if this goes wrong.

Not until she nearly loses her entire right side anyway.


	4. Puddles

4\. Puddles

Gunshots are like miniaturized thunderstorms.

She hates them. The smell is sulfur and rain never washed it away.

She sees Nokia's fingers tremble with a gun too big and fall with the recoil and the lightning strikes and she-

Cries.

She wants to go to school, that is her dream, to go to school and be normal.

She can't.

The world is cruel and bitter, her father says softly. "Be kind with your knife. Be silk and steel."

She's too young to realize her father's words come from this angry part of his heart. Right now, they sound like gospel.


	5. Dasher

5\. Dasher

She's her own prince.

Saves herself, admonishes herself, no one else needs to. Her equals are leaps and bounds beyond her without trying and she aches with envy.

Yet there is a prince. Green-haired and blood eyes and a lack of expression are twined with chains like a Christmas tree.

She takes aim and Digitorin fires.

The blue dragon is faster.

By the time Akiho is relatively close, it's already over. And her prince looks as lost as she always has.

Why did those governments do this? Maybe now she deserved this isolation.

But not back then.

And never Subaru.


	6. Cross

6\. Cross

Subaru has the prettier hair of the two of them. Not even because she's a tomboy (because she's not) but because she's impatient and doesn't like other people having sharp objects at her throat. Subaru is still trusting.

Lucky her.

No envy, just acknowledgement. Mama is a hairdresser though, and does it whenever the bathroom scissors go missing. It's nice. It's cute.

Blood isn't as cute.

Akiho scrubs her hands until they gleam but they still clench and come off sticky.

Future generations are a small price for her crimes.

Thinking that way makes her cry long into the night.


	7. Smiles

7\. Smiles

Tug on mirror cheeks. Tug on leather pouches. Tug on smooth metal.

Teeth gleaming white, but the eyes are too blank.

Have to change, this won't be forever, right?

Help. The bleach isn't working anymore.

She remembers no matter how many times she thinks it's a practice dummy. Sometimes it's not, never really. She remembers, sees slick flesh and remembering holding knives through worse.

She remembers Uncle Glare's shame as he kneels and gives her a hug with a small pin for dresses. The war has stopped outside but it's still in her head and she can't smile it away.


	8. Faded

8\. Faded

Subaru's not innocent now.

She's screaming, howling, for her, squirming against the older person, a hostage. Flames lick her own fingers, but she buries them under her sleeves. The gunmetal is heavy, black. The bullet is loaded. She smells sulfur.

Lightning strikes.

Rina's hands are clasped.

Akiho rolls, flaming Soul crimson, kicks up. She's smiling now.

She has to show her sister _something_. Has to show her it's not over just because the world takes your childhood away.

Subaru reacts. There's still a person in there.

At the end Akiho whispers words she doesn't actually believe but someone has to.


	9. Maw

9\. Maw

The world opens up in a yawn, with the sky. She drops from it, hit right on the spine. Hurts a bit like the treadmill two hours too long, but the steady, too-warm body under hers blocks out the scream. Not breathing.

Her wife is not breathing, still can't bleed, what if she's dying, where are the Digimon, what if-

A wheeze of cold air drops her from her stupor. "Hey," she wheezes. "I'm okay."

Akiho almost cries,but then she can't because everything, including breathing, hurts.

She passes out instead and it's almost worse because they are so vulnerable.


	10. Gossamer

10\. Gossamer

She coughs twice for good measure, looks at the scorned children, the empty-eyed ones. She looks at the orphans and shrugs off the looks. Some are hungry, some are angry. Some are envious.

She licks the blood off of her mouth.

Served that old man right.

Rina is watching them over her head, new big smile in place, arms draped over her shoulders. Calculating. Daring. Who is fool enough to hurt them?

Orphans? Unloved? Hah! She wants to help them more than she feels sorry for them. At least they don't have hope. They have to fool themselves with illusions.


	11. Boredom

11\. Boredom

Her body learns how to breathe.

She consistently lies and says she has asthma, despite moving better than everyone else.

She constantly tells her friends that Rina gets sensory overload when she doesn't come along, so Rina doesn't say that she hates these vapid shallow people who just stick around her to get the eyes of boys.

She wants to say the same, wishes she could. But one of them needs to infiltrate, and besides, this world's seasons are worse than her homeland's.

Their benefactor is happy to assist how he can. There's a cost, but it's better this way.


	12. Snowfall

12\. Snowfall

Akiho punches the area where flakes of snow used to be. She thinks of her sister in her fluffy blue earmuffs and the tears start falling and if she was special, they would turn into ice but instead they just burn the old scratches on her face.

Breathing is hard again.

Her friends plop an orange scarf over her fingers but the tears and frustration are too heavy. She cries so hard, they call Rina, and she leaves club and probably flies over from one district to another to walk her home.

We aren't going home, she thinks bitterly. Never.


	13. Digimon

13\. Digimon

Digitorin's absence is like a black hole. Getting the pet toy changes it. Suddenly the Digimon are chatting by their sides, persuading work to be done and their children to laugh. Rina seems to have passed an unwritten test, Akiho's friends talk to her now.

Thankfully, she has made others.

They sound nice enough. She almost plucks up the courage to go with one day, but the smell of charred fur and ashes makes her pause.

Rina nods when she says so. "Yeah, me too."

Akiho nods back, watching her go. Her fingers twitch for the knife in its holster.


	14. Repent

14\. Repent

She is constantly making mistakes. It's all she's ever known. She doesn't want forgiveness for it, or to mindlessly accept that everything is deserved.

Akiho knows she has a large chip on her shoulder.

To Digimon who are strangers, she is a meat sack, a violent one. That's fine. She's already killed people for her mistakes.

If she doesn't, they will come and snatch what's hers.

Their tiny apartment is just a wash of small rooms and broken window blinds now.

She swallows and puts on a sneer to give the boys the mafia queen.

They won't see anything else.


	15. Lacking

15\. Lacking

He doesn't care what she does. Even if it disturbs him and his heart rejects it out of hand, he is still a gentleman. She envies that. Envies that soundlessly, or maybe with quite a lot of noise by the end. Who knows? She can't say for sure.

He sighs into her neck, dozing slowly away. He looks like a child. He looks vulnerable. Subaru would like him. he accepts her, but tolerates very little. But then, would she care if she was in love, so long as she was alive?

Akiho sighs softly and once again, tries to sleep.


End file.
